Childhood of children forced to pick up garbage, and women’s health — vulnerable to toxic gas and contaminated water

Vulnerable lives are being forced to do waste picking to survive. In Bhalswa landfill, the health of the women and the children who pick waste are at risk of harmful effects.

Delhi— In Delhi, the capital city of the country, people from different parts of the country are all busy doing their work. In this, someone is an employee of a big company and someone is doing domestic labour for someone else. Here, the most important thing in everyone's life is their work. Delhi has three "mountains" of waste – Bhalswa, Ghazipur, and Akhola. Where people from different parts of the country come to work. So that they can earn a living. Despite being the most dangerous place to work in terms of health and the environment, some people are impelled to work here. But, even more than this, you cannot even begin to imagine how difficult it can be for young children to work here. The Mooknayak's team spoke to some of the women working at Bhalswa landfill. Who are dependent on this mountain of waste for their living.

Last month, a fire broke out at the Bhalswa landfill. But today, the lives of the people here are back to usual. As we started going up Bhalswa's mountain of waste, in front of some small-small shacks we met two sisters, who had come from West Bengal. Both spoke on condition of anonymity. The elder sister must have been around 17 to 18 years old and the younger sister was 13 years old.

The elder sister told us that her family came here five years ago in search of work. Her parents and siblings live in a small, squalid shack. Since it was the afternoon, everyone has gone to pick up the waste. She says, "My mother-in-law also goes to pick waste, I too go." Talking about marriage she says that, soon after coming to Delhi, her family married her off to a boy here. "He also picks waste. We both do only this work. At the moment I have a child. Sometimes my mother-in-law looks after him and sometimes I do it. So that both of us can go to work in turns. This is our life and this is our work." When The Mooknayak asked the younger sister standing nearby if she was studying, her answer was, "I used to study in the village. But not here, because I studied in a Bengali-medium school, and I understand Hindi only a little bit. That's why after coming here, I didn't get admission. Now I go to pick waste. I give a helping hand to my family members. But this year, the family members are saying that they will get me admission to a government school here."

On walking past the shacks, we saw sacks filled with waste from sticks. Which people had filled with sorted waste and now it was going to be sold. All this waste had been picked by several families living in the shacks by working from 6 am in the morning to 6 pm in the evening. On climbing the mountain of waste, we came to know that there are many such women here who along with their daughters pick waste in the scorching heat. The relatives of many of these people likely do not even know what work they do here. Shamreen is one of them. Whose in-laws live in Gurgaon. Her maternal home is in Bhalswa. The sun was about to set.

Shamreen climbs the "mountain" with great speed to prepare for picking waste. She says that her in-laws do not know that she comes to her maternal home to pick up the waste. "My mother lives alone and is also ill. In the past too, because of her illness, she had taken loans from people. Now it is also necessary to return the money to them. And she has to be taken care of." Shamreen says that "In Gurgaon, I collect garbage from apartment buildings. Even when I was with a child (state of being pregnant)I still did this work. I started this work only a week after the delivery of my baby. Right now I have come after leaving my son with my mother." She says this very frankly, that if we do not work, then how will we eat?

There are many women like Shamreen who have such problems in their life. After the corona period, people's lives have been derailed in such a way that it is becoming difficult to get back to what it was before. Perhaps that's why, Sita Devi of Muzaffarpur, Bihar, accompanied by her daughter, is looking for iron in the waste dump by using a metal detector, which is a box with a handle and has a magnet in it. Becauseironsells at the most lucrative price. Sita moves the metal detector in circles over the waste. She is also accompanied by a friend and her two daughters. Everybody is doing the same work. Sita tells us that she came to Delhi last year. She comes at this time of the year and then goes back. In this way, her child's education also carries on. Sita was accompanied by her daughter, who was giving a helping hand to her mother.

Sita tells us that when the monsoon starts, she goes back to her village, and at that time the children are also able to attend school. Because no work remains to be done here. It is the same with Sita's friend. She also came to Delhi only a little while back. When we asked her if she goes back to her village, she says, "Yes, if we don't go to the village, how will we stay here all the time?"When we asked about the fire in the month of April, she says that not only did it have a damaging effect on our health, but along with this, the waste that we had picked was also burnt down, which caused a loss of about Rs 10,000.

This evening, on this mountain of waste, is also Anshu and her friend, who was under 10 years old. With a sack in one hand and a water bottle in the other, they skipped and ran as they went ahead. On seeing us they stopped. Anshu tells The Mooknayak, "There is a lot of filth here, we are poor people, that's why we come here." When we asked if she had come here to pick waste, she said, "No, I have come to meet my mother. Who works in the dump plant here." But both the girls were carrying the sacks used for picking waste in their hands. She says that I don't feel like coming here. But we are under compulsion to do so. When both the girls were asked about their education, both of them appeared happy as they said yes, we go to school. "I study in class 6 now and I study diligently. So that I can get a job in the police. My father does dish-cable work and my mother works at the plant," said Anshu.

In different parts of the country, many such women are living their lives in these toxic and polluted settlements. Inhaling the methane gas released from the waste can cause many diseases. Young children, who should be breathing fresh air, are now having to breathe surrounded by toxic gases and are drinking contaminated water. According to a report submitted by the NGT (National Green Tribunal) last year, all three landfill sites in Delhi have caused Rs 450 crore worth of environmental damage to the city. This report has been prepared by experts from IIT Delhi [Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi], CPCB [Central Pollution Control Board], and NEERI [National Environmental Engineering Research Institute].

[Story Translated By Lotika Singha]

यहां हिन्दी में भी पढ़ें: कूड़ा बीनने के लिए मजबूर इन बच्चों का बचपन और महिलाओं का स्वास्थ्य जहरीली गैस और दूषित पानी की चपेट में